A Poem By Megan Amram

The man in the moon is a woman
in China: Chang’e, moon goddess,
twinkle-checked, chic night-speck in the black
that smears and tacks like an anemone.

While the world sleeps, Chang’e sleeps
next to her husband Houyi
and his jade rabbit and jade arrows
and penchant for archery.

Each night is lithe vinyl:
stars dimpling like quartz in hand,
the quilted scalp of space-time and
Chang’e’s moon slowly fuguing into the middle:
the fingers of gravity; the Chang’e yo-yo.

Thanks to Chang’e, the moon is eyed.
Green fish have eyes in their pistachio hulls,
so too spiders, and circa-bauble flies,
and the tiny spacemen that float equidistant
from the corners of blood.

All are eyed, and I quietly thank
the loaf of an amoeba who crawled
out of that primordial bisque,
forced open the flaps in the middle of its entirely new face
and said to itself: this is
the most beautiful night I have ever seen.

Megan Amram is a graduate of Harvard University and comedy
writer living in Los Angeles.